Several years ago there was an off-Broadway musical called “Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?”  It was an homage of sorts to Catholic school days of the 1950s and early ‘60s.  At one point in the play, the cast enacted the annual ritual of the May crowning, in which some lucky young lady was chosen to crown the statue of the Blessed Mother.  

After the play had been on tour for several years, I read an interview with the playwright. He said that in every city in which the play was produced, when they got to that moment in the play and the cast would begin singing the traditional May crowning song, invariably Catholics of a certain age in the audience would join right in.  If you were raised in the Catholic Church, and are of a certain age, then you remember singing

    Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today,
    Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May,
    Oh Mary we crown thee with blossoms today
    Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.

I say “of a certain age” because since the Second Vatican Council, the role of Mary has diminished in the church.  Many of the statues have been removed and unless it’s an ethnic parish, you would be hard pressed to find Our Lady of Perpetual Hope devotions on Tuesdays anymore.  And I doubt there are many parishes left that have a real May procession, with all the parish societies participating, the Ushers Club carrying a flower-bedecked platform around the block, and one lucky young lady chosen to crown the statue, accompanied by the singing of that song.  

I’ll get to the reasons for this in a bit, but first I’d like to talk a little about this woman who has been the cause of great devotion and not a little consternation in the Catholic Church.

Little is known of Mary from scriptural sources.  A genealogy for Mary is given in Luke 3.  According to Luke, she was of the tribe of Judah and the lineage of  David (Luke 1:32).  In the first chapter of Luke, the story is told of the Annunciation:

   ²⁶And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,  ²⁷To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. ²⁸And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee:  blessed art thou among women.  ²⁹And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.  ³⁰And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.

  ³¹And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.  ³²He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest: and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David:  ³³And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end.
  ³⁴Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?
  ³⁵And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.  ³⁶And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren.  ³⁷For with God nothing shall be impossible.
 ³⁸And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.

 Mary then visits Elisabeth, who greets her with the words

⁴² . . . Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. ⁴³And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? ⁴⁴For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.

    Mary replies with a song of praise and thanksgiving (Luke 1:46-55), commonly known as The Magnificat:

My soul doth magnify the Lord,
And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever.

    
The only glimpse we have of Mary in Jesus’ early life comes from the story of the visitation to the Temple in Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve.  Upon leaving the city, Mary and Joseph travel for a day before realizing that the child is not with them.  They return to the temple to find him conversing with the elders, asking and answering questions with knowledge far beyond his years.  Mary reprimands her son, saying:  "Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.”  Jesus replies, “How is it that ye sought me? wist [know] ye not that I must be about my Father's business?” (Luke 2:48-49)

I remember reading that story as a child and thinking,  If I had come back with a crack like that to my mother, it would have been a long walk back to Nazareth.  It may have been for Jesus, too, since two verses later we learn “And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them.”

The next mention of Mary is at the marriage in Cana, traditionally believed to be the site of Jesus’ first miracle.  At this wedding feast they run out of wine, and Mary approaches her son to help:

   And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. ⁴Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. ⁵His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. (John 2:3-5)

We hear nothing of Mary again in the gospels until she is mentioned as being present both at the Crucifixion and in the room when the Holy Spirit descends on the disciples on the day of Pentecost.  Her death is not recorded in scripture.

There is more information provided in non-scriptural sources, most notably the Gospel of James, an apocryphal gospel probably written around A.D. 150.  The writer, who may or may not be James the Just, first bishop of Jerusalem, provides great detail both about Mary’s parentage and her life as the mother of the child Jesus.  Many of the traditional beliefs about Mary stem from this source and others like it.  For example, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, which states that Mary was the only human ever conceived and born without Original Sin, was first described and defended by the Oxford Franciscans John Duns Scotus and William of Ware in the late 13th century.  In 1854 Pius IX declared this doctrine as a teaching of the Church.  

Another article of dogma associated with Mary is the Virgin Birth.  This doctrine states that Mary was virgin when she conceived, virgin when she gave birth and virgin eternally.  The gospels of both Matthew and Luke refer to Jesus’ mother as a virgin.  Athanasius, one of the early church fathers, wrote of “Mary, Ever-virgin.”  In his Summa Theological, Thomas Aquinas argued that Mary gave birth painlessly and remained a physical virgin after the birth of Christ.  This doctrine is also accepted by other faiths:  The Qu’ran states that Mary remained a virgin; Martin Luther accepted the Virgin Birth and the virginity of Mary. 

The third dogmatic belief associated with Mary is the Assumption.  Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians assert that Mary was assumed bodily into heaven upon her death.  The Feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15.  In 1950, Pius XII proclaimed in his encyclical Munificentissimus Deus that this doctrine is infallible, meaning that it is a mandatory belief for Catholics.  This is the only time that papal infallibility has ever been invoked. 

These three doctrines have in common the idea of the incorruptibility of the mother of the Messiah, and each serves a purpose of its own.  For example, the idea of the Virgin Birth is important when one sees it as a means of legitimizing the messianic nature of Jesus.  One can imagine the early Christians needing something to add credibility to their claim of Jesus as Messiah, so they used the prophecies from the Old Testament as proof of Jesus’ true nature.  In Isaiah (7:14), it was written:  “Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.”

Ancient peoples were much more accepting of the idea of a virgin birth.  And lest we snicker at their scientific ignorance, we need to check the reality as described by modern science. The idea of a virgin birth, while not common, is not as farfetched as we would expect.  Indeed, parthenogenesis, as it’s more scientifically known, has been observed in turkeys.  And some contemporary scientists have theorized that in some cases the births of identical twins may resulted from the spontaneous division of the ovum without any contact with spermatozoa.  

Then there was the famous case of Christabel Russell.  In the 1920s, Christabel Russell was sued for divorce by her husband in England, in what was to become a most celebrated case.  She was pregnant at the time the case opened and gave birth during the trial.  Lord Russell sued on the grounds of adultery, saying that their marriage had never been consummated.  His wife agreed but stated that she was innocent of adultery because she was still a virgin.  She was examined by reputable gynecologists, who swore under oath that she was indeed still a virgin.  Her declaration was upheld and even went so far as the House of Lords, which cleared her and gave the child she bore the Russell name.

The idea of “Mary, Ever-virgin” had a social and cultural purpose, too.  Mary was described as the new Eve, the woman who would bring about the redemption of the world, in contrast to the woman who had caused it to be mired in misery in the first place.  She is, after all, one-half of the virgin/whore dichotomy, and her example has been the cause of centuries of sexual repression.  Once all of Western civilization accepted the Greek idea of the separation of body and soul, it’s not a great leap to see the body as earthly, corruptible and impure while the soul remains pure and otherworldly.  All of these currents intersect in the doctrines of the Immaculate Conception, Virgin Birth and Assumption.

Within the Catholic Church there has always been great devotion to Mary. The most beautiful hymns, prayers and devotions are the ones in her honor.  This devotion has been misunderstood by many outside the Church, who consider it a form of idolatry.

Let me set the record straight.  Catholics do not worship Mary.  They pray to her, just as they pray to the saints, to intercede on their behalf with God.  I remember being told as a child, “How could Jesus refuse anything his mother asks of him?”  My favorite prayer is still the Memorare, supposedly written by St. Bernard:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known
That anyone who fled to they protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession, was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence, I fly unto thee, O Vrgin of virgins, my Mother.
To thee I come, before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen

It was from the litany of Mary that I first gained my understanding of and appreciation for metaphor.  In it, she is called the Mirror of Justice, Seat of Wisdom, Tower of David, Ark of the Covenant, Gate of Heaven, and my favorite, Mystical Rose.  I can sing the Lourdes hymn in three languages and recite the rosary in two.

One of my earliest memories is of being rocked to sleep by my grandmother while my grandfather sat in the other chair and sang “Serdeczna Matka,” a Polish hymn to the Dear Mother.  It is still a song that brings tears to my eyes, mainly because it has been sung at the funerals of too many people I love, including my mother.  I guess it may be asking too much to have the choir learn it for my memorial service, but I need to find a good CD to attach to my Life Crisis form.  

But I’m afraid these hymns and devotions aren’t very common any more.  Ever since the Second Vatican Council ended in 1965, the statues and Marian devotions have been abandoned in most Catholic churches.  There were many good things that came out of Vatican II, including greater participation and appreciation of the laity and an intentional outreach to other faiths.  But there were some bad things that we can blame on that Council, including folk masses and the dismissal of Mary from a central role in the life of the church. 

In her book Missing Mary, Charlene Spretnak cites an article by Fr. Andrew Greeley, a priest with a long record of ticking off Catholic hierarchy with his social progressivism.  He may be better known to some of you as the author of the Bishop Blackie Ryan series.  In a 2001 article in Commonweal, a progressive Catholic publication, Greeley railed against “beige Catholicism,” which he says resulted from “Catholic Elites,"

who are only too eager to denude our rain forest of metaphors because, particularly in Calvinist America, they are more than a little ashamed of them.

 In the same article, Greeley writes of Mary:

Perhaps the most powerful of our metaphors is that of the Madonna, the story of the One who is behind the Cosmos; the one who ignited the Big Bang is something like the love of a mother for her newborn child…Could not the Mary symbol be rearticulated as representing the love of God for the creatures, the children, the drying babies whom God has given life and nurturance/ Indeed, is that not the prima facie meaning of the symbol? Why do we need to pretend that Mary is not part of our heritage? Why do contemporary Catholic theologians ignore her like Victorian novelists ignored sex?  Why does she embarrass us? Why have we left her to those who wish to multiply titles or those who pursue Gnostic interpretations in private revelations?  Beats me!

Mary was de-emphasized in the Catholic Church because she was seen as impediment to ecumenism.  It was thought that Marian devotions were a red flag to other Christians, so they went the way of the Latin Mass.  There is no room for what Fr. Greeley calls “prosacramental progressives,” people who are politically liberal or progressive but cherish the full sacramental heritage of Catholicism. 

So the debate continues in the Church about the role of Mary.  And as a Catholic of a certain age, who grew up with the songs and the stories and grew into a kind of mystic humanist, I’ve been examining the role and meaning of Mary in my own life.  
In doing so, I’ve pretty much eliminated a lot of the dogma.  I don’t care about Mary’s virginity; I don’t care what happened to her after she died.  For me, the most important and interesting aspect of the story of Mary is her response to the Archangel Gabriel.  Since everyone else seems to have put words into her mouth and ideas into her head, I will too.

As many of her contemporaries did, Mary probably imagined a nice life, married to a good man, with a flock of children.  That’s what her life, her education, her socialization had prepared her for – a comfortable life in Nazareth.  Imagine:  A 15- year-old girl is confronted by this supernatural being who tells her that she is to be mother to the Messiah.  This probably didn’t fit into her life plan at the time.  She could have said no.  She could have pressed for more details.  She had a choice – and she chooses to volunteer for a part in the redemption of the world.

I’ve never liked the interpretation of humble Mary accepting whatever God had planned for her.  I like to think of her as choosing to create her own fate at that moment.  In my Annuciation story, Mary doesn’t demurely reply, Be it done unto me according to thy word.  Instead, like Molly Bloom two thousand years later, she proclaims, “yes I said yes I will Yes.”  

The power is within her.

And it is that choice that resonates with me.  I like to believe that each of us has some great purpose in our lives.  Each of us, in some way, is called upon to participate in the redemption of the world.  To redeem it from hate, injustice, ignorance, each of us has a role to play.  When we choose to accept our fate, to take our part in the transformation of the world, we are echoing Mary in the garden with the archangel Gabriel.  
We don’t have to be immaculately conceived or eternal virgins; we just need to be open to possibilities and trust the cosmos to support us.  Let it be done to us, according to . . . no . . . yes we say yes we will Yes.
References
Ashe, Geoffrey. The Virgin: Mary’s Cult and the Re-emergence of the Goddess.  London:Arkana,  1976.

Spretnak, Charlene.  Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Warner, Marina.  Alone of All Her Sex: The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary.  New York: Random House, 1983.